Blood of the Enemy
by KesAFloyd
Summary: COMPLETE. There's a new cat in town, and his name is Remus Lupin! Lupin may have found a solution to help werewolves everywhere, so why is he still dying slowly with every full moon?


Six years after Harry's graduation from Hogwarts.  
  
"I didn't know you lived in a Muggle flat!"  
Lupin nodded and opened the front door.  
"Wow! It's nice!" Harry had always harbored the horrible image of his former professor and Order of the Phoenix ally living in a moldy broom closet or dumpster somewhere.  
"It's not much," answered Lupin, "But it suits me fine."  
Harry sat down on the couch as Lupin disappeared into the kitchen. The flat was indeed tiny, but nowhere near as bad as one a person might expect any unemployed werewolf to live in.  
There were rows upon rows of spellbooks and DADA manuals in inexpensive, self-assembled book cases. Strewn on the coffee table were half a dozen issues of the "Monthly Howler", the free publication put out by the Werewolf Support Society of Great Britain. There were also a fair number of Muggle coins thrown about on the table, and it occurred to Harry that Lupin couldn't be paying his landlord with wizard money.  
Lupin returned with two glasses of purple lemonade.  
"Thanks," said Harry.  
"How have you been?" Lupin asked.  
"Same old, same old. Still slogging through the last bits of the Malfoy child custody trial. I think I've finally got that bastard in the can for a decent length of time." A year ago, Lupin and Harry had caught Lucius Malfoy sexually abusing Draco's younger brother Marcus. Lupin had participated as a witness at the beginning of the ensuing trial, but found he could not stand attending for very long due to Lucius's constant taunting.  
"It's nice of you to invite me," Harry added.  
"No problem."  
Something wasn't adding up.  
"Remus, why are you living in a Muggle area?"  
"It's what I can afford. I work two jobs where they don't even know werewolves exist outside fairy tales, get paid in pounds sterling, and that is what I use to pay for my rent, food, and utilities. I'm rolling in Muggle cash. It's just that I can barely scrape up enough Galleons to pay Snape back for Wolfsbane each month. There's no exchange rate."  
It was good to know Lupin wasn't starving, even if he had to live a large portion of his life like a squib.  
"Couldn't you conjure or transfigure the money?"  
"Harry! You know our society would collapse if anyone could just conjure the money he needed at any given moment! All stores have sneakoscopes in them, and counterfeited money can't be deposited anywhere; the goblins would know instantly."  
"That's too bad."  
"But I've been working on something very big, Harry, and that's why I invited you over. Of course I'm happy just to see you..." Harry's blood pounded in his neck as he thought about the full moon a year ago when he and Lupin had concocted the Insomniac's Comatose Curer as a late substitute for Wolfsbane. No, Lupin was just being polite, just happy to see him.  
"Close your eyes," instructed Lupin. Harry obeyed. He felt the faintest rustle of air, and ceased to feel Lupin's weight on the couch next to him. Suddenly, he felt the touch of four little paws on his lap. He opened his eyes to find a tiny gray tabby kitten staring back at him. It purred and kneaded on his leg. It smashed its head lovingly into Harry's stomach. Then it hopped off his lap.  
In an instant, Lupin was sitting on the floor, beaming.  
"I just got my registration certificate four days ago. I'm real and legal."  
"Congratulations! But, why?"  
"The 'Monthly Howler' had an article containing some very old accounts of lycanthropism, and there was an unverified report of a pack of werewolves who learned to transform themselves into other animals on the full moon in order to avoid its effects. Animals are impervious to the werewolf's bite, and now by transforming into a kitten, I may be finally be free from Wolfsbane. It could be the beginning of a new age for werewolves everywhere-if it works."  
"If it works?"  
"I transformed last month, and there were no problems, but I had also taken Wolfsbane, so I don't know which force was keeping me sane. I have to dare to go without Wolfsbane this month."  
"Well, good luck."  
"I don't need luck. I need a companion on the next full moon, and I want your help."  
"My help?"  
"I hope it's not asking too much, but I feel uncomfortable asking someone who hasn't seen me transform into a wolf already."  
"Why not Moody?"  
Lupin shook his head.  
"I suppose it's because you're the son of an animagus. You have the Marauder blood in you. And Mad Eye's getting on, dottier by the day. He'd probably hex me to oblivion on sheer reflex the moment I transformed. Doesn't move around too well either."  
"Do you think it will be safe?"  
"I can't say. I don't want you to be in danger. I just want you to stand guard outside and make sure no one enters if I become violent."  
"All right. I'm in. Where are you going to... do this?"  
"Can't do it here. I'm going back to the Shrieking Shack."  
"Kind of far, isn't it? There's got to be someplace closer that you could use."  
"I wouldn't feel secure anywhere else. The shack is, so to speak, one of my old haunts."  
  
The afternoon before the full moon, Lupin and Harry arrived at Hogwarts by broomstick, had tea with Headmistress McGonnagall (she was very impressed with Lupin's animagus), and then strode onto the green where the Whomping Willow stood.  
"This is what I have in mind," said Lupin. "We'll erect an exclusive age line in the passageway. No one my age will be able to cross it. That way, you'll be able to watch me carefully without being in actual danger. We'll go in well before the moon rises. You'll probably want to eat something before then."  
"What about you?" Harry asked.  
"I can't eat anything now."  
  
Lupin touched the knot on the Whomping Willow to freeze it, and the two of them entered the passageway to the Shrieking Shack. They reached the shack and Lupin stepped through the door. Then they erected the age barrier as Lupin had described, and Lupin transformed into the kitten.  
"Hey, Whiskers, good luck."  
Harry checked his watch. The moon was due to rise soon.  
For a long time, it seemed, nothing happened. Then the cat let out a mournful wail. It flopped into a fluffy heap on the floor and began twitching as if in a dream. Then, it began to grow. Harry's heart sank. It wasn't working. Lupin was growing to the size of a wolf.  
But, no. He wasn't actually becoming a wolf. He was simply growing. The kitten was now the size Padfoot had once been. It stared at Harry with amazement after scrambling to its fluffy feet.  
There came a sound from the corridor. Someone was approaching. Perhaps it was McGonnagall, coming to make sure all was well. But she didn't stomp like that. No, this was...  
Snape! Harry's heart raced as his former potions teacher appeared in the corridor. He looked deathly ill, and was tripping over his feet and robes. He was pale, and his eyes were bloodshot. He was clutching a goblet of something that Harry imagined was Wolfsbane.  
"Werewolf!" Snape snarled, completely ignoring Harry. "How dare you refuse my gift of Wolfsbane? You've broken our bargain!"  
Something remarkable happened then. So often, Harry had seen Professor McGonnagall make the graceful leap from cat into human, and that is precisely what Lupin did next. He stood there under the full moon, eying Snape.  
"I'm sorry, Severus. You made your choice long ago, and for you there's no going back."  
"You still have to give me what you agreed to, werewolf."  
"Of course, but this may be the last time I can. I've overridden the transformation with one of my own. Because of that choice you made, though, you don't have my options."  
Snape looked ready to attack Lupin. He dropped the goblet in his rage. The blue liquid splashed and puddled up in the dirt.  
"Death is never the answer," continued Lupin, "and I'm sorry you chose it. We could have been wolves together, but you chose constant torture over a monthly one. How you."  
With a shriek uncharacteristic of the potions master with the frozen heart, Snape ran through the door (he had not yet celebrated his birthday), and, to Harry's utter horror, jumped upon Lupin, bit into his neck, and began to suck his blood.  
"Remus!" Harry screamed, and reached for his wand.  
"No, don't interfere. This is what I have to do to make up for biting him the night Sirius led him into this corridor." He then stood in silence, letting Snape drain him of what must have been a gallon of blood. Then Snape detached, and with a pop, flew away as a vampire bat.  
Lupin fell to his knees, panting. His long gray hair was disheveled and limp.  
"Since Wolfsbane, becoming a wolf hasn't been terrible. It's painful of course, but even what I'd call invigorating once the transformation is complete. It's being drained of blood once a month that's killing me."  
"But why? You don't owe Snape that, even if he does make your Wolfsbane."  
"Didn't you hear what I said?" Lupin collapsed against the door frame. "I bit him. Werewolves and vampires are the same type of being except that one is living and the other is... dead. Snivellus killed himself that night, nearly thirty years ago now. He chose the bat over the wolf. Ever since, I've been paying my debt with blood. Wolfsbane is just a bonus Snape feels is a security to the bargain."  
"But now, are you free?" Harry dared to ask.  
"From lycanthropism, possibly, but never free from the debt that both of us hate."  
"Why do you keep doing it then? Surely he can stand on his own two feet."  
"I don't do it for him! I do it for all the people he'd have to bite if he didn't have me. He takes Vampireswill, which allows him to live a fairly normal life (not that that's possible for him), but he still needs the blood of others to survive. I'm already infected, as it were, so I'm the best person for him to bite and feed off of."  
"I didn't know he wanted to live," Harry muttered.  
"It's not a matter of living. By killing himself, he committed himself to a possible eternity of vampirehood that can only be ended by running a stake through his heart. Not even the killing curse can harm a vampire. That's how he survived Voldemort's wrath all those years.  
"It's a matter of sanity. If he doesn't collect blood in a controlled way, he'll lose control altogether, and revert to the savage mental state that all vampires lived in before the 'Will."  
Harry had to ask, "Will you become a vampire when you die?" He saw a frightful image of Lupin continuing his sad existence into eternity, feeding off the blood of others to survive, knowing that blood would be sucked whether or not he had any say in the matter, that with every bite he was spreading the werewolf-vampire problem.  
"Only if I die under a full moon," said Lupin, "which is what Snape did, stupid child. Should have researched his options as a werewolf instead of doing himself in that same night."  
Lupin's voice had been growing quieter as he became more and more exhausted. At last, he transformed back into a cat and curled up in a ball to sleep. Harry sat there all night, images of cats, bats, and wolves chasing across his field of vision, until he too fell into a deep sleep. It was filled with the story Lupin had told, the promise two outcast enemies had made to each other, and visions of the terror that would come when Lupin was finally independent of Wolfsbane. 


End file.
